There's not a great deal of murder in Death Walks On High Heels (a body-count of just three),and only one of the killings is particularly graphic, but director Luciano Ercoli more than makes up for the lack of gruesome violence with plenty of nekkidness from Nieves Navarro (All the Colors of the Dark) and a complex, twisty-turny plot that keeps viewers on their toes from start to finish.
Navarro plays stripper Nicole, who is interviewed by the police after her father, jewel thief Rochard, is murdered on a train. The police believe that the killer was looking for the fortune in diamonds recently lifted by her old man, and that if she knows of their whereabouts, she might also be in danger. Sure enough, the blue-eyed, razor-wielding comes a-calling, threatening to slice her up unless she hands over the jewels. When Nicole discovers blue contact lenses in the bathroom cabinet of her lover Michel (Simón Andreu),she thinks he is the maniac and hops on a plane with wealthy admirer Dr. Robert Matthews (Frank Wolff) to start a new life in rural England. Unfortunately for Nicole, the murderer isn't far behind...
With numerous suspects and red herrings, the film demands some serious attention from the viewer, but Ercoli directs with an assured hand and ties the plot together nicely by the end titles. The cast are uniformly excellent, with Navarro steaming up the screen with a couple of sexy strip routines, Wolff putting in a great performance as Nicole's unlikely love interest, and Andreu impressing as drunken Michel, who keeps us guessing as to whether he is the blue-eyed assassin; however, for my money, it is Carlo Gentili as hard-nosed Inspector Baxter who puts in the best performance and who gets all the best lines - he's hilarious!
The film perhaps isn't as stylish as many a giallo, but with such an engrossing story, it doesn't really need to be a technical showcase. In the one graphic murder scene - the butchering of Dr. Matthew's wife Vanessa - the lack of visual flourishes act in the film's favour, making the scene all the more potent. Ercoli's use of Stelvio Cipriani excellent score is sparse, but very effective. The final twist, in which an unlikely character unmasks the killer by pure chance, is a stroke of genius.
Outside the work of Bava and Argento, Ercoli's giallo must surely stand as one of the genre's best examples.
8.5/10, rounded up to 9 for IMDb.
Plot summary
After a heist, the notorious jewel thief Rochard is murdered in a train. In Paris, his daughter Nicole Rochard, who is a stripper, is summoned by the police that wants to know the whereabouts of valuable diamonds that her father had stolen. She goes with her boyfriend Michel Aumont and tells that does not know anything about the missing diamonds. During the night, a blue eye masked man breaks in her apartment and threatens her, asking where the diamonds are. Nicole seeks protection with Michel but in the morning she finds contact lens in his bathroom and she suspects Michel may be the masked man. She seeks out her costumer Dr. Robert Matthews, who had hit on her, and she asks him if she could go with in to London. Matthews, who is married, brings Nicole to a house by the sea in a village and she poses of his wife. But soon the masked man comes to England and begins a crime spree. The Scotland Yard Inspector Baxter and his assistant are assigned to investigate the case.
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Sensual fish-eating and suggestive napkin fondling.
The killer wears contacts
A man is stabbed on a train, leading the police to question Nicole (giallo queen Nieves Navarro) about diamonds that are missing. Her life turns upside down, as she begins to receive disguised phone calls asking about the diamonds and a blue-eyed masked man attacks her in her boudoir. She then remembers that her jealous lover Michel owns contact lenses in that color, so she runs away with an older eye surgeon to the coast of England. But Michel isn't far behind...
The first of three giallo directed by Navarro's husband, Luciano Ercoli, this is what the genre should be: shocking, lurid, bloody and oh so fashionable. It also makes a deft turn from what we expect from the form into an actual mystery film.
There's a plot twist here that honestly shocked me, so I won't spoil it. While the other two films in the Ercoli giallo trilogy - Death Walks at Midnight and The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion - are much better, this is still a quality film worthy of your time. Some critics decry them as Ercoli making movies just to feature his wife, but if you had a quality woman like Navarro in your life, I bet you'd do the same.
Giallo
A famed jewel thief named Rochard is slashed to death on a train. His daughter Nicole, a famous nightclub performer in Paris, is questioned by the police about some missing diamonds but she claims to know nothing about this. Nicole is then terrorized by a masked man with piercing blue eyes who demands to know where her father has hidden the stolen diamonds.
The film is written by no less a figure than Ernesto Gastaldi, who is considered by some to be the father of giallo. The director, Luciano Ercoli, is interestingly perhaps better known as a producer or production designer. He more or less fell into directing as a cost-cutting measure -- one less person to hire. (Tim Lucas compares Ercoli to Brian DePalma... and there is some truth to that.)
Who doesn't love composer Stelvio Cipriani, probably among the top composers in Italy (behind perhaps Ennio Morricone and Goblin for genre film). What we get here is rather sparse (many scenes have no music at all) but the man does what he does well. Not surprisingly, his work has been used by Quentin Tarantino, the champion of such films as this.
A note on the lead actor, an American. Frank Wolff had bit roles in his first two films, Roger Corman's "I Mobster" and "The Wasp Woman". On Corman's advice, Frank Wolff remained in Europe and became a well-known character actor in over fifty, mostly Italian-made, films of the 1960s, including crime/suspense "gialli" and spaghetti westerns.
Director Ercoli obviously does not have the name recognition of Mario Bava or Dario Argento, but he still knows how to make a great giallo (with a dollop of influence from Argento's "Bird With the Crystal Plumage"). A masked and gloved killer, a bit of mirrors, and an unhealthy fascination with eyes -- close-ups of eyes, false eyes, windows that look like eyes. Nobody knows eyes like the Italians!
The Arrow Video blu-ray allows the viewer to watch either the Italian or English versions (because sometimes you need a dub, and sometimes you don't). The disc also comes with: Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, by far the most knowledgeable non-Italian scholar of the Italian genre film. Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. A featurette comprising newly-edited archive footage of director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro. A career-spanning interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani. Italian genre fans (which includes pretty much all horror fans) will love this disc, part of Arrow's "Death Walks Twice" set.